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The Morning Looks Charming

[ Roud 580 ; Ballad Index WT059 ; trad.]

The Watersons sang The Morning Looks Charming in 1966 on their LP A Yorkshire Garland. It was finally reissued on CD in 2004 on the Watersons' 4CD anthology Mighty River of Song. A.L. Lloyd commented in the original album's sleeve notes:

This song came to Frank Kidson from the Howden district of Yorkshire. It does not seem to have spread far from its native home. Like nearly all our hunting songs, its words sound as if they were made by an educated amateur writer, rather than a folk poet. Following their sound instinct, the Watersons have re-phrased one or two of the more literary lines. The tune is related to the melody of the sea song Roll, Bullies, Roll (sometimes, in error, sung as “Row, Bullies, Row”).

[I don't understand his last comment. In any other source I know of, the name of this shanty is Row, Bullies, Row; even one of Lloyd's own albums is called Row Bullies Row.]

Lyrics

The Watersons sing The Morning Looks Charming

The morning looks charming, all nature is gay,
Come away, me brave boys, to your horses away;
For the first of all pleasures is hunting the hare
You haven't as much as a moment to spare

Chorus (after each verse):

So hark to the hounds, the morn is fair,
Come, brave boys, a-hunting the hare

The lively tuned horn how melodious it sounds
To the musical notes of the merry mouthed hounds;
Over yon stubble field you will find her below,
“See now,” cries the huntsman, “Hark, to him we'll go.”

See now where she goes with the hounds in full view
And a heavy and weary the nearer we drew;
Oh the hedges and ditches to us are no bounds
For the world is our own while we follow the hounds.

How glorious a death to be honoured with sounds
Of a horn and a shout and a chorus of hounds;
Here's a health to all hunters and long be their lives
And may they be blessed in their sweethearts and wives.

Acknowledgements

Transcribed by Garry Gillard, thanks to Bob Hudson, and many more to Steve Willis. And thanks also to Danny Spooner for teaching Garry the song in 1983 at the Mill Theatre, Geelong, Victoria (Australia).